PDK polls consistently show that parents give their children's schools high marks but are dissatisfied with the performance of public schools nationally. This paradox may be explained by the persistent narrative of failing public schools that has dominated media coverage in the past 50 years. Authors Mark Hlavacik and Jack Schneider tracked the…

The landscape of higher education in the United States currently comprises 5918 institutions serving approximately 18.1 million students. Among them, 1833 are small institutions with full-time equivalent enrollments of 3000 or less. In this article, the authors examine financial and enrollment challenges facing small institutions and the potential…

In this groundbreaking book, one of the world's leading authorities on ways of developing equitable education systems addresses the greatest challenge facing education systems around the world, that of developing schools that are effective in educating all children. Using evidence from research carried over the last 25 years in many countries, Mel…

Ohio Revised Code 3302.038 requires the Department of Education and Workforce ("the Department") to submit a report regarding the effectiveness of the school district and building report cards by Dec. 31, 2024. The statute requires the Department to study data from the Ohio School Report Cards for the 2021-2022, 2022-2023, and 2023-2024…

The article identifies current trends with respect to the governance and management of institutional performance in higher education institutions and discusses how recent developments in this area can be interpreted. It is argued that performance governance is changing with respect to the way performances are documented, measured and disseminated.…

This article examines the unique situation of New Jersey Public Schools being ranked the best in the nation while simultaneously being ranked the worst in the nation for inclusion of students with disabilities. An examination of the legal and theoretical underpinnings of inclusion is presented, followed by a review of current research in general…

The Data Must Speak (DMS) Positive Deviance research aims to improve the equity and quality of education through the use of data by studying the practices and behaviours of 'positive deviant' schools -- schools that outperform others despite operating in similar contexts and with equivalent resources. The analysis aims to inform practical…

Discover how one public higher education institution was able to succeed despite the many obstacles and challenges that it faced. This is the story of how and why Baruch College of The City University of New York became a "positive outlier," overcoming serious financial constraints, physical space limitations, and other difficulties to…

A gap exists between the ability to gauge the success of institutions by deploying a relatively simple set of measures typically based upon the federal cohort, versus the ability to monitor the successful (or unsuccessful) progression of the varied students who move through them. Daniel Regan questions which matters more. To gauge the health of an…

Global policy development in schooling often looks to solutions that embrace technology and articulate a 'what works' approach to practice. This paper takes as a case study the Australian Government's "Through Growth to Achievement" report on achieving school excellence. It analyses the report through the lens of 'sublimes', which…

With the 5th Edition of Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement, best-selling Victoria Bernhardt has written the go-to-resource for data analysis in your school! By incorporating collaborative structures to implement, monitor, and evaluate the vision and continuous improvement plan, this book provides a framework to show learning…

The Institutional Effectiveness Partnership Initiative (IEPI) launched in 2014 as a collaborative effort to help districts promote student success and improve their fiscal and operational effectiveness. The initiative focuses on four major aspects of institutional effectiveness: 1) student performance and outcomes; 2) accreditation status; 3)…

School inspections are a common feature of many education systems. These may be informed by quantitative background data about schools. It is recognised that there are pros and cons of using such quantitative information as part of the inspection process, though these have rarely been succinctly set out. This paper seeks to fill this gap by…

The authors of this article investigate the economic knowledge of Czech high school students using a database of 18,589 participants from the 2019 to 2020 Czech Economics Olympiad. Czech high school students show solid comprehension of basic economic concepts and principles of international economics but understand substantially less about…

The US uses an evidence-based approach to education (US-EBE) as a strategy for pursuing two major goals: (1) to raise achievement in the US overall by facilitating improvement among all students, including students in disadvantaged groups; (2) to narrow achievement gaps between socially advantaged and disadvantaged groups by levelling up…